Most people are aware of Trump’s book, ‘The Art of the Deal,’ co-authored by Trump and journalist Tony Schwartz. In the book Trump touts himself as the consummate deal maker and he has continued to cultivate that image over the years up to and including his current occupation of the White House. However, anyone who is willing to dig a little deeper and not be blinded by the MAGA propaganda machine, quickly realizes that Trump is a terrible deal maker and has in the past and continues to leave a trail of failures in his wake.
There are the six bankruptcies in his business career which left financial institutions and contractors holding the bag and resulted in many lost jobs. There is the failed and sanctioned Trump University and who can forget Trump airlines! The Trump family charity was forced to disband after financial irregularities and banned from doing similar work in New York for several years.
He vowed upon being re-elected to his second term that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. We all see how that is going. During his first term, he was sure he could make a deal with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, and after much hype and fanfare, that was also a bust. North Korea is once again lobbing missiles into the Pacific Ocean and continues its belligerent rhetoric against the West.
What was once a strong alliance with Canada is now one of suspicion and distrust after Trump’s insulting rhetoric about annexing Canada as the 51st state. The once strong alliance with NATO is skating on very thin ice as Trump continues his belligerent rhetoric about taking Greenland by military force if necessary.
You get the picture. Donald Trump is not a deal maker. The book should more appropriately have been named, “The Art of the Con”. Dealmaker he is not. Consummate conman he is. And, unfortunately, the Con Man in Chief, now has a very powerful military at his disposal which he believes precludes the need for any deal making. Now he can just take what he wants.
If Trump were a true deal maker and he sees a need to tap the vast resources that Greenland has, specifically Rare Earth Elements, he would assemble a team and negotiate a deal that would benefit both Greenland (Denmark) and the United States. There is absolutely no doubt that such a deal could be worked out by intelligent adults. It could be a real win-win situation.
However, Trump does not believe in win-win. He believes that every transaction will have a winner and a loser. He does not believe in sharing. He wants all the marbles all the time. He understands that if he were to actually negotiate a deal with Greenland, there would be restrictions on how to preserve the fragile ecosystem in Greenland while extracting its resources. He does not want to be bothered by such trifles. He simply wants to go in and rape and pillage the island so he and his cronies can take what they want and get richer in the process. It’s not about making a deal. It’s about plundering and taking. That is exactly what is happening in Venezuela.
Venezuela is just the start. Trump has already asked that the military budget be increased so he can use it to take more and more. ‘The Art of the Deal’ has now evolved into ‘The Art of the Take.’ He surely learned this lesson from Vladimir Putin, who appears to be his mentor and idol. There will be no more deal making. There will only be taking until somehow ‘we the people’ can figure out a way to stop him. The Supreme Court failed. Congress continues to fail. ‘We The People’ are the only thing standing between a democratic United States of America and a despotic, dystopian future. That is not hyperbole. That is just a plain hard fact.
We have a president who has immunity from prosecution, total disregard for the Constitution and the Rule of Law, the most powerful military in the world, and an insatiable lust for wealth and power. What could possibly go wrong?
